BazermanMoore

118 Chapter 7: Fairness and Ethics in Decision Making
explain the results. However, they also argue that a simple notion of equality does not
explain the data, since in most cases the proposer asks for more than 50 percent of the
resources in the first stage. Rather, parties realize that the other side may very well
refuse offers perceived as unfair despite the economic rationality of accepting them.
Fair Dictators?
Ochs and Roth had participants play either an ultimatum game like the one just described
or a ‘‘dictator’’ game in which the proposer could simply decide how the
resources would be split without the responder’s acceptance. They found that while
many proposers chose a 50–50 split in the ultimatum game, none proposed a 100–0
split. By contrast, under the dictator format, 36 percent of all propsers took 100 percent.
When acceptance was required, proposals became more equal. However, in the dictator
game, when acceptance by the other party was not required, 64 percent still chose to
give the other party some portion of the resources. These results demonstrate that both
a desire to be fair and the realization that being unfair can generate future costs led to
choices that deviated from rational models in systematic and predictable directions.
The Persistent Desire for Fairness
Many people have the intuition that it is easy to sacrifice a few dollars to punish an
unfair allocation in the ultimatum game, but that people would behave more rationally
if the stakes were sufficiently high. The evidence, however, contradicts this intuition. A
number of studies have varied the stakes in the ultimatum game and found no appreciable
effect on behavior—even when the total pie was equal to several months’ wages.
An even split remains the most common offer by proposers, and responders routinely
reject any offer less than 20 percent (Cameron, 1999; Hoffman, McCabe, & Smith,
1996; Straub & Murnighan, 1995).
Neuroimaging techniques pinpoint the role of emotional reactions in the ultimatum
game. Functional magnetic resonance imaging technology (fMRI) allows scientists
to see how blood flows to different parts of the brain in real time. Decision scientists
who are interested in the mechanisms behind people’s observed choices have used
fMRIs to determine which part of the brain is activated under different conditions.
Sanfey, Rilling, Aronson, Nystrom, and Cohen (2003) scanned players’ brains as they
received ultimatum-game offers either from another person or from a computer. The
researchers found different patterns in brain activation for unfair offers and for fair
offers, and the differences were greater when these offers came from another person
than when they came from a computer. A region associated with negative emotional
states (the anterior insula) was stimulated when players considered unfair offers, as was
another region that the authors hypothesized was connected to the cognitive demands
of the task (the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), namely, the desire to make as much money
as possible. The greater emotional response for unfair offers provides concrete evidence
that emotional processes are involved in this type of decision making.
There is surprising cross-cultural consistency in the way people play the ultimatum
game. Henrich, Boyd, Bowles, Camerer, Fehr, Gintis, et al. (2001) conducted studies
that included the game in fifteen global societies. This research found little support for
the classic economic view of self-interest; fairness was found to be an important factor